Deadly Premonition sure is a strange game, isn't it? It's also proving to be rather memorable, coming up in conversations about the title's influence on modern narrative-focused games.

The unique combination of survival-horror and open world RPG, as well as its innate Twin Peaks' inspired quirkiness, has made it a natural choice for our Chronicles series. We're going to be playing through Deadly Premonition and chatting about the good, the bad, and just plain ol' weird. We'll stick with it as long as it holds our interest and we hope you'll join us as we experience Swery65's oddball odyssey.

Far Cry Primal is finally out, and players are already finding the title to be a surprisingly different variation on the Far Cry formula. If you’re making up your mind about whether Ubisoft’s new game is worth a play, you should consider Jeff Cork’s complete review. If you need some more visual evidence, today’s video should give you a good sense of what you’re getting into, as we’ve recorded one full hour in the open world first-person game.

Ben Reeves and I sat down to play the game together. We come to Primal with an abundance of experience in both general first-person shooters and the earlier Far Cry games, but little to no hands-on perspective on this latest release. Join us as we explore the opening of Far Cry Primal together, and find out if the game is for you. Far Cry Primal is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The Flame in The Flood is a roguelike survival adventure game that hit Xbox One and PC yesterday. The gorgeous looking game casts you as a young woman trying to make it downriver on a raft with the help of her trusty dog while danger lurks around every bend.

Join Andrew Reiner and I as we take a trip down the river and try to survive for as long as possible. (Spoiler: we don't last long).

To help further your involvement in the discussion, we’ve planned a text-based live chat for Friday, February 26, from 3pm to 4pm CST. Like in the podcast, we’ll be discussing everything in the game that happens after you leave Midgar and up through the end of Disc One. We like you to come and share what you think!

If you’ve been playing along with us, or if Final Fantasy VII is just one of your favorite games, we hope you’ll join us. We’ll post a link to the live chat shortly before 3pm on Friday.

There's a good dose of blogs in this week's edition to help you get through the end of the week and into the weekend. Please give them all a read and consider writing one yourself. Now let's get to it.

Community Blogs For February 18 – February 24:

Confusion Longtime blogger Rebekah Lang gives readers a look into her life pursuing games writing, and just how difficult that has been. And then she admits that it may not be for her after all. Writing is hard. Reporting and writing is hard. Video game, sports writing, and feature writing are all hard. My advice is to never give up. However, if you find another calling, then roll with it. Hopefully it's in this wonderful field you love.

While the influx of new MMORPGs has slowed to a trickle in comparison to the market of years ago, continual support, new content, expansions, and renovations continue to make the genre one of the most compelling offerings on PC.

This feature was originally published on February 22, 2016.

While some of today’s best offerings are also available on console, the roster of titles available on PC is deeper than ever and allows players to pick a title that syncs up perfectly with their own personal playstyles and interests. While this list is by no means an attempt to track every single MMORPG out there – there are so many right now – we’re looking at titles that we think are worth watching this year. Titles are listed in no particular order or ranking.

One of the cornerstones of the roguelike genre is harshly punishing the player for their failures. Games likes The Binding of Isaac, FTL, and Spelunky can often have you raging at the screen as a simple miscalculation can result in your untimely demise and hours of lost progress, but such losses make those moments of victory, where you triumph over the mighty Olmec or take down the rebel flagship, that much sweeter. However, the trade-off for these sorts of risk/reward systems is that they often end up pushing casual players away from them simply because they find the payoff for the time investment simply isn't worth it. To call this issue a design flaw would be unfair toward those games given that a lot of their appeal ostensibly rests on the player understanding the depths of loss so they can experiences heights of success.

That said, I've often wondered over the past few years if there was a way that developers could make allowances toward players who want to play these difficult games on their own terms without necessarily corrupting the core experiences. Several recently released games have attempted to do just that and have been, for the most part, rather successful.

Grifball has been a favorite of the Halo community ever since its invention by Rooster Teeth back in the days of Halo 3.

Now 343 Industries has brought back the fast-paced mayhem starting today in Halo 5: Guardians, and Kyle Hilliard and Wade Wojcik wanted to see how the mode holds up with the inclusion of Spartan abilities. Check out the carnage below! (Spoiler alert, we're crazy rusty. Cue the Rocky training montage.)

We've seen brief snippets of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End for over two years now, but Naughty Dog has kept the story close to its chest, revealing very little about Nathan Drake's current state of being or the expedition he's embarking on. We know he and his brother Sam are looking for Captain Henry Avery's treasure – the largest reported pirate treasure of all. Rival treasure hunters are in pursuit.

Today's two-minute story trailer gives us a wider look at the locations and characters in this chapter of Drake's life. While it once again doesn't offer much in terms of narrative clarity, it does reveal that we will see a lot of Nathan and Sam together, both in the present and the past.

We combed every second of the trailer for hints and secrets, and pinpointed a few things worth noting. If you see anything else we should discuss, let us know and we'll add it to the story.

Play enough of TT Games’ Lego titles, and you’re bound to notice a few things that keep popping up. No, we’re not talking about gameplay elements like piles of bricks that shatter into showers of Lego studs, hidden minikits, or the almighty stud magnet. Have you ever wondered why Lego games have all those hidden discos? Is there a story behind the pigs? What’s up with the carrots? We spoke with TT Games about several of these recurring gags during our visit for Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and are back with some of the stories behind them.

Disco PartiesLego minifigures can’t seem to resist the disco call, whether Batman’s shaking his groove thang on the floor or Frodo brings the power of dance to the Shire with his disco phial. TT Games’ interest in booty-shaking action goes back to the first Lego Star Wars game, which was based on the prequel trilogy.

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